Two Price Boosters From the UAE

There are two positive news supporting Ripple (XRP) from the UAE region:

1. BitOasis, Dubai’s top cryptocurrency exchange, has announced that it would enable XRP trading this week.

2. RAK Bank will now be using RippleNet, to launch instant, frictionless, and secure money transfer services to India’s Axis Bank customers.

So, while a good proportion of the markets is busy assessing the impact that the UAE developments would have on the price of Ripple’s digital asset – XRP – there was one big headline that came in from the Far East.

3. Big XRP News From Japan

According to a release on the company’s website, Japan-based SBI Holdings’ newly released digital asset exchange — SBI Virtual Currencies — will use XRP as the only digital asset supported at launch; implying exclusive listing at a Japanese cryptocurrency exchange! SBI Virtual Currencies launched in beta on January 30th.

What makes this news even bigger is that SBI Securities (another subsidiary of SBI Holdings), is Japan’s largest online securities company with more than 4 million brokerage accounts. What more can the digital currency with a strong institutional use case and scalability as well as growing demand in Japan possibly ask for? “Not only does it have a clear use case, XRP is faster, cheaper and more scalable than any other digital asset,” said Yoshitaka Kitao, CEO & Executive Chairman of SBI Holdings who strongly believes that XRP will become the global standard in digital currencies.

4. SBI Ripple Asia’s latest move

Over the past year, SBI Holdings’ belief in Ripple (XRP) has only strengthened with its SBI Ripple Asia- Ripple partnership and its leadership role in the consortium researching on the use of DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) in securities products. Most recently, the company [SBI Ripple Asia] has announced [as translated from Japanese] the establishment of a securities consortium for utilizing diversification ledger technology etc. while promoting “from savings to asset formation” through cross-industry efforts to improve user convenience and improve work efficiency.

The securities consortium launch member list includes:

Imamura Securities Co., Ltd.

Iwai Cosmo Securities Co., Ltd.

HIS Securities Co., Ltd.

Eight Securities Co., Ltd.

SBI Securities Co., Ltd.

Okasan Online Securities Co., Ltd.

Okasan Securities Co., Ltd.

Kabu.com Securities Co., Ltd.

GMO Click Securities Co., Ltd.

Secom Corporation

Daiko Securities Business Co., Ltd.

Daiwa Securities Co., Ltd.

Tokai Tokyo Financial Holdings Co., Ltd.

NEC

Nomura Securities Co., Ltd.

Matsui Securities Co., Ltd.

Monex Securities Co., Ltd.

Rakuten Securities Co., Ltd.

SBI Holdings Stock up 100% – Ripple Effect?

SBI Holdings’ stock also trades on US OTC markets under the ticker SBHGF. The stock is up 100% over the past year alone. From $12.5 / share, the stock now trades at over $25 / share; is it the Ripple Effect?